The future of what?
There鈥檚 a massive debate going on at the moment about the future of television. Now there probably always is within this industry but there is a growing feeling that the current edition is a pretty big deal 鈥 and not just for media types to ponder over their morning caf茅 lattes.
Much of my work in 大象传媒 Sport involves some intense discussions between old and new media people about developing content for interactive platforms. And in the last few weeks we have had the most extensive discussions yet, in which I think we have each learned lots of about the others' world.
At the same time this week there seems to have been a barrage of research and comment on the future of TV/the media/web (and none of it anything to do with the big news of Michael Grade's move).
On Wednesday the Guardian reported that followed a day later by .
Before that, the 大象传媒 TV and radio bulletins were full of confirming that online use is eroding TV viewing.
This was part of a wider report into the by the 大象传媒 News Technology website. A lot of it was quite illuminating, even if to question the assumptions made.
But personally I was a bit depressed by the thoughts of who seem to find it difficult to literally leap outside the box.
For example says "I love YouTube and stuff like that - but part of me thinks if you put that on telly, it would be like a slightly downmarket You've Been Framed."
This admittedly came in the same week that launched with the aim of showcasing such user-generated content 24/7 and when Jeremy Paxman again shared his disdain for the whole practice by accusing his editor of making "pathetic pleas for you to send some of your old bits of home movie and the like so we can become the 大象传媒's version of Animals Do the Funniest Things."
Personally I think YouTube including is great. At the same time much of the content also offends some of my sensibilities a lot of the time. But should such content have to be "put on the telly" and packaged up in a programme to be relevant?
YouTube is changing the way many, especially the young, consume video content. I don鈥檛 know whether that has anything to do with TV or whether it鈥檚 a different thing to TV. But it鈥檚 happening and I don鈥檛 think TV people can easily dismiss it.
Similarly complains that "It's quite hard work watching The Lord of the Rings on your iPod".
I am one of the few who hasn鈥檛 seen any of the celebrated Rings trilogy yet (it looks like hard work even on a giant cinema screen) and I wouldn鈥檛 watch all six hours of an Ashes Test on an iPod either but (if we had the rights) I would gladly take in 10 or even 20 minutes of highlights on the way to work.
This all followed some internal debate in 大象传媒 interactive teams this week about whether our video (which is largely cut from traditional TV) is really suited to the web. that 鈥渢he Web isn't just a support system for hit TV shows" and suggested "the way the networks look at the Internet now is like the early days of TV, when announcers would just read radio scripts on camera."
I am not sure whether you have to film everything specifically for the web. Many of our audience appear happy to consume made-for-TV Ashes coverage online but most are still watching it on TV so that will have to come first for a time.
But it is yet another challenge to the preconceptions of the major broadcasters. Most of what we knew and understand about the world is increasingly confusing anybody in TV born before 1980. And that鈥檚 most people with any power in TV - including us in the "new" media/interactive departments.
Peter Horrocks - the head of the 大象传媒's TV News operation - has written a very interesting post on our sister blog which illustrates just how seriously he and other senior figures in news are taking things.
And this isn't just happening in the UK either - a meeting this week with our opposite numbers from France Television Interactive was like holding up a cross-channel mirror.
So no, I don鈥檛 know whether we are just talking about the future of TV - or whether you can sensibly separate TV from the rest of the media anymore.
But, having spent a lot of the past few weeks with colleagues in 大象传媒 television (and radio) sport, I am happy to say that we are at least increasingly talking about the future together, whatever it is. And that we are each thinking outside of our own boxes too.
Ultimately that should be good news for the viewer/listener/surfer - or let's just say consumer shall we?
颁辞尘尘别苍迟蝉听听Post your comment
One of these days there will be no need for televisions because everyone will be watching shows on the internet.
Let鈥檚 call them licence payers.
鈥淭omorrow鈥檚 world syndrome, the perpetual belief that new technologies are about to dramatically alter the world鈥
Ben Elton (大象传媒1 1998)
Isn鈥檛 there a danger the 大象传媒 are suffering from TWS, jumping on the latest bandwagon like they did with the Messageboard?
Really joe how interesting, it seems like you have really thought that through. NOT. What a revolutionary theory, no one has ever thought that before... come on leave another comment stating the obvious such as the typewriter is going out of fashion...
It is encouraging to hear that 大象传媒 Sport is starting to have joined-up thinking about how it delivers its content. One of the great features of the so called Web 2.0 applications is that 'joe bloggs' video archive gets to be released and shared to one and all freely. It may be crap, but so what let the viewer make the judgment. Now, the 大象传媒's planned Open Archive is set to take this to another level, with potentially thousands of programmes from its archive to view freely - because this stuff has already been paid for by license payers. Unfortunately, so I am reliably informed, the 大象传媒's sports archive will not be part of it. Why? Because sports rights holders will not sanction it. While I can appreciate that some major events in our sporting history are commercially valuable - the 66 World Cup for example - I fail to see how the other 90% of the 大象传媒s sports output could ever be deemed commercially valuable (outside the industry that is). Some sports events are valuable to certain individuals for cultural reasons - so why not let them have it on the web - their ipod - whatever?
I think the 大象传媒 could utilise its own material better; for example putting all of its output on any specific club (for example Liverpool) on its club page - radio match reports, post match interviews etc., so fans could go there and get it all. It only does bits at the moment.
You said 'massive debate' - Fnarr!
"Isn鈥檛 there a danger the 大象传媒 are suffering from TWS, jumping on the latest bandwagon like they did with the Messageboard?"
And with the Ashes coverage where their reliance on new technologies fails to disguise the poor scheduling of the highlights.
There's always a danger the likes of me get carried away. I linked to the Marketing article to show two sides to the story and rest assured there are plenty of people around the 大象传媒 who will stop us rushing into anything!
Ironically, are on the website. So is lots of footage. We would like to do more but need the lawyers to go through rights contracts often signed long before the internet was thought about.
The problem with content about clubs being in different places is a common theme of recent discussion here. Things are produced in London and the regions in different ways using different systems but Kay you've highlighted the issue so well that I hope you won't mind me quoting you when when I talk to people who can hopefully help us get this fixed.
Hi Chris
I think my comment, taken out of context, can seem like an inability to think outside the box, but I'd urge you to check out Emmerdale's innovative online channel at itv.com surrounding Who Killed Tom King, and you'll see that I and my programme are embracing the new technologies and the web. I think interactivity deepens the storytelling experience and is incredibly exciting.
Kath Beedles
Hi Kath - welcome to the 大象传媒! And yes I probably was a little unfair.
I just looked at and, while I confess I am not a soap fan, the idea for the Tom King storyline does look great. It is also something that is made for the medium rather than just putting TV on the web.
That's my point really - things that suit one thing don't necessarily suit another but they also compete for people's time now.
I also reckon Christmas Day will be a good day to launch what with all those cheap new laptops people will have unwrapped. We were surprised last Christmas Day by the figures for our mobile service, perhaps because of some new shiny phones? Who'd have thought this would happen a few years ago when it seemed Christmas was purely about eating, drinking and television?
Do you mind me being a bit inquisitive across the great channel divide? I'll understand if you don't answer but in your team do ideas like this come from the TV people or a specific web team? We sometimes find that those with different backgrounds still have different ideas of what works on each platform - me included!
Thanks again for your comments - and sorry for quoting a bit out of context especially since it helped me make what looks now like a pretty poor pun about "the box"!
Hi,
Thank you.
I'm hoping you're right about Christmas day! The site is quite incredible and I hope people find their way there. I appreciate you posting the link.
This idea came from me. I haven't worked in the new technology area but I love gadgets and the internet. I reckon if the internet had been around like it is now, when I was a teenager, I'd have been online constantly. I'm 31, I only started using the net about 12-13 years ago and instantly loved it, even though then it was largely text based (or at least seemed to be to me). I love how it's changing constantly and as a drama producer and writer, I find it exciting that we can have an extension from a TV show, to give people a more rounded experience.
Whilst the idea was mine - in terms of knowing that fans online would be talking about the storyline and swapping clues & wanting to give them a space to do that - the site as it is now is down to Hoodlum and ITVi.
Hoodlum are an incredible company who have done a number of online crossovers with Tv. They have made this project come alive and it is something now that I could never have come up with alone. The heads of the company have worked in TV and so understand both processes really well.
I'm learning tons from this and I know that the next big Emmerdale storyline or project of my own will have an online operation too, one which will be integral from the beginning . So yes there probably is a wee gulf now, but I think this will lessen as both sides work together more.
Thanks again and all the best, Kath
kath beedles exec. producer of emmerdale and our very own chris russell..if only we non media types were given the courtesy of a prompt response...
I believe we humans are turning into cyborg. No Doubt....Every market has been taken by internet. Whatever we need,it is in there from music, TV programs to shopping.
Even busy people can get access to internet through new digital technologies like phones.
"The problem with content about clubs being in different places is a common theme of recent discussion here. Things are produced in London and the regions in different ways using different systems but Kay you've highlighted the issue so well that I hope you won't mind me quoting you when when I talk to people who can hopefully help us get this fixed."
Thanks for quoting me, but as these days any twelve year old can upload their camera phones to You Tube in an instant, why a Radio London journalist doing the same thing with his post match interviews would be complicated is puzzling. Too much 大象传媒 bureaucracy perhaps....?
interesting that the writer of this blog uses "I" or "my" over a dozen times in this article.....and describes us as "viewers/listeners/surfers.....or consumers" i think its fair to say that there is little chance therefore of the "customer" getting what they want out of all this !!
Kay - This kind of thing puzzles me at times but yes 大象传媒 policy means using YouTube is not (currently) an option. As with all these things in such a fast-moving area this will probably need looking at again...
By the way I also got sent another link today which seems relevant to the debate here, to a post written by a former employee of the US sports network ESPN. It contains the bold prediction that .
It sounds like the kind of thing Emmerdale are doing and the way sport is increasingly covered too - across different areas.
Ha, I didn't mean the 大象传媒 putting their stuff on You Tube, I meant the ease of doing the equivalent on the 大象传媒, so if you missed that Thierry Henry interview on Football Focus or Sport on 5 you'd know you could go to the 大象传媒 Arsenal Club page and it'd be there, rather than disappearing into the ether. Although to be fair this is already happening to some extent.
I would also love to see old MOTD clips online, not sure what the rights difficulties would be there just for short clips; even the Jimmy Hill punditry would have comedy value - or is that just me! Archive interviews with the likes of Shankly and Brian Clough would be fascinating though.
Kay, have you been on 606...that interview with Henry could well alredy be on there somewhere...but could you find it ??
It would be easier to find in the ether !!!
And do you and Chris not have each others email address..it would be easier to have your own private conversation that way..although it is nice to see someone on a Chris Russell blog getting regular responses from him.....
JD - jealousy is such an ugly emotion.....
Thinking more about it could the 大象传媒 not show a classic MOTD on one of its digital channels, perhaps straight after the current show is transmitted on 大象传媒1?
Sky do a similar thing with their ESPN classic matches and it's very popular.
Although I know the 大象传媒 like to flog MOTD on DVD, so might therefore kill a money-spinner for the rights holders, if they release their archive for free as it were.
kay
i did send an apology post...i got my kaths and kays mixed up...so hopefully this post will see the light of day.
ps the emotion is not jealousy but frustration that those responsible for the destruction of the bbc messageboards do not communicate with the thousands of posters complaining and asking for explanations for the shambles.
but an exec producer for emmerdale gets a quick response from this blog writer..
and pps sorry again kay ( i like your posts )
If the unpopular mess that is the 606 message boards is an example of 大象传媒's approach to new media, well give me the old-fashioned stuff, things that people like and use